Apple Users

Opera Coast is a gesture driven browser (e.g. swipe to the right to go back a page, swipe to the left to go forward). Using that with the MyScript Stylus handwriting keyboard and I feel like I'm approaching some kind of tablet web browsing utopia. (They are both free.)

Some Opera Coast caveats: no tabbed browsing (I said lightweight), the default search engine is Google and there doesn't appear to be a way to change it, no search for text within a page, it seems to crash infrequently on iOS8 whereas it almost never crashed on iOS7.

I have an older version (9.1.0) of the Mercury Web Browser which I really like for the full-screen mode (which I use for a specific work related purpose). Although I rarely use that browser, I do like a lot of the built-in features: ad blocker, popup blocker, assignable gestures, user agent switcher, etc. I imagine the current versions in the app store are pretty much the same - not sure what happened to their previous iTunes developer account under iLegendsoft, but the Pro version is free now (for a limited time I believe).

I haven't looked at iPad browser options in quite a while so there may be something new and wonderful out there - unfortunately the only way to know if you truly like software is to test drive it yourself. At least there are quite a few free options to try - and most paid browser apps are only a few dollars.

A quick Google search reveal a couple of browsers I hadn't heard of before but look like they might be worth checking out: Sleipnir Mobile (free) and iCab Mobile ($1.99).

It all depends on what features are important for how you browse. Let us know what you try and what you ultimately decide.